UGANDA – GA insurance, a Kenyan insurance company, has officially launched in Uganda after acquiring 100% of Nova Insurance Company in November 2019.
Following GA’s acquisition of NOVA insurance company, GA will be part of more than 25 companies driving up insurance sector penetration in East Africa, which according to the Financial Sector Deepening report, is still less than 1% in Uganda.
The GA Insurance Kenya CEO, Vijay Srivastava stated that GA will go along with the rapid technological innovation and will soon launch a document management software that will enable the management of huge volumes of data and information for its general and medical insurance.
This is part of GA’s insurance plan to expand across East Africa. The firm already has operations in Kenya and Tanzania.
“I am hopeful that the new brand we are unveiling today will go a long way in contributing to the development of the insurance industry in Uganda,” Alhaj Ibrahim Kaddunabbi Lubega, the Chief Executive Officer – IRA said.
“It is important that we continuously reinvent ourselves and adapt to the changing needs of the market so as to respond to the customers’ needs and aspirations”, he added.
Lubega said, “I am happy to note that the GA Insurance Limited brings to the Ugandan market its financial strength, skillful underwriting, customer experience and most specifically, that GA is rated by the Global Credit Rating Agency and their underwriting premiums growing to US$66 billion.”
According to Francis Kamau, the Chief Executive Officer of GA, the company believes in using technology and innovations to drive the wheel of claims settlement without hustles.
“Insurance penetration is 0.84% in Uganda compared to the 3% in Kenya,” Kamau said, adding that the market is very receptive, spiced by the accommodative regulator.
“Basing on the allocation of funds by the Government to different economic sectors like road transport, air transport, oil and gas, ICT innovations and others, we are optimistic that the economy will grow to favour an increase in the uptake of insurance”, Kamau added.
0.2 million (1%) people of Uganda are informally insured and about 11 million (59%) Ugandans are unsecured.
Fraud indicators such as delays in reconciliations of collected premiums by agents and request to change the beneficiary shortly after issuing the policy, have been cited among some of the reasons that could partly account for the low insurance uptake in Uganda.
